


Seeds of Discord Part 42

by kbj1123



Series: Wonder Woman & Captain America [43]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover Pairings, F/M, One True Pairing, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 14:26:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4023289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbj1123/pseuds/kbj1123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle's losses have long-lasting repercussions for our heroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeds of Discord Part 42

Six Weeks Later…

Diana stares out at the beach below their room. Steve puts his hand on her shoulder. Together, they watch the waves creep up to the empty shoreline and recede into dark water. Minutes go by. He knows this because he occasionally stares past the ocean, back to Diana’s reflection. Her shoulders, throat and face are pale against the night sky. He lets his gaze recede through the glass reflection to the blinking digital clock on the nightstand by the bed. It is well past two a.m.. He refocuses on their reflection. The scar winds along his lower left ribs like an unruly vine. Its bumpy relief of stitches feels like thorns every time he stretches the wrong way. They are reminders of the friend they could not save. He still occasionally feels a sharp twinge, deep past his lungs. He feels it now as his breath catches slightly. “We’ll find him,” he states for the hundredth time in more than a month. His voice hitches slightly. They don’t need this conversation again. It is no one’s fault; if Bruce is still in between Olympus and Earth, he will heal, and the gods will send him home when they are ready…maybe. 

Diana has assured everyone that Nyx and her children will receive their punishments, that Olympus surely has no need for The Hulk. The gods will deliver him back to them. "Or he could never come home," Steve thinks. A team of agents discovered them three days later in the empty office space below what half the team swore was The Concordance Group’s floor. Bruce wasn’t with them. There was no floor above the one on which they were found. Tony called in every favor; SHIELD used every resource; Thor, to his knowledge, is still searching the Realms. Everyone searched for Bruce except for him and Diana. Even after Diana healed, she stayed with him those three weeks it took for his organs and bones to reassemble themselves. He squeezes her shoulder and lays down on the bed. “Come to bed, Diana.” He does his best to keep emotion from his voice. “Get some rest.”

She turns and looks at him. Not for the first time, she reminds him of one of those statues of Aphrodite come to life—her nakedness isn’t quite real. He imagines her as pink marble, like the statues of Apollo and Artemis in the in-between world. Sometimes lately, he dreams of cracks creeping through the perfect stone sculpture of his wife. He misses the assurance that her flesh is soft. He misses his wife. She looks directly at him and walks to the bed with absolutely no intention of communication. She just comes to the bed and climbs in on her side. They lay there like that, him on his back, his hands folded behind his head, her with her back to him. He knows this will pass. They’ve both taken physical and emotional beatings. He knows she blames herself for not getting to him in time; she knows he blames himself for being too distracted to fight properly. Bruce saved him to save Diana. He’s not sure there are any heroes in this story. 

He does know that they go through the motions most nights, like they’re about to now. He rolls toward her, puts one hand over her hip and pushes her hair away from her neck. He says, “Is this okay?” It’s how they always seem to start, these past weeks. She reaches around and takes his hand from her hip, interlaces her fingers between his, the way she does lately. He’s been especially gentle, partly because of her injuries and partly because of his. Physically, they’re fine, though. At least she is, anyway. They move their fingertips across one another’s jaw lines, lips, and palms, like they have been doing. It’s become a practiced choreography. She doesn’t turn around, but she stretches out her top leg and curls the bottom knee into her chest. He kisses the hollow space in the back of her neck, and she sighs in that way that tells him to keep going. He moves his mouth between her shoulder blades and uses their interlaced hands, his large, warm palm over the back of her cool, delicate fingers, to just below her navel and they position themselves together the way they usually do now. Afterwards, she turns to him and tells him she loves him, like she always does. He knows she means it. She kisses him as hard as she can, as if she’s trying to find something. She closes her eyes and breathes slowly. He knows she’s pretending to sleep. He’s sure she knows she isn’t fooling him. He gets up anyway, pulls on his shorts and takes the stairs down to the hotel’s back entrance, and walks to the beach.

He doesn’t think about anything. Instead, he focuses on the warm, dry sand that sinks between his toes with each step. He listens to the waves lap against the shore and feels the damp, grainy mist on his bare arms and chest. The salt makes the scars and stitches itch and sting slightly. Images shove themselves in front of his mind’s eye from time to time: Diana’s bloody body the first time Eris nearly killed her, the sound of Diana’s cries in the throes of passion. He remembers the gigantic marble fingers of Apollo closing around the goddess Nyx in an angry fist, just before he passed out from blood loss and pain. He stops and shakes his head, willing the pictures and sounds to move on. 

He stares out at the half-moon on the horizon. It is late June. His birthday is coming up. He’ll be ninety-eight. In his wife’s lifetime, he’s barely a toddler. The thought of toddlers makes him continue to walk. He doesn’t want his thoughts to go down that particular path.

Nevertheless, he remembers that evening on the beach during their honeymoon, when a normal life seemed in the cards. How are they going to get through this? He bends down to pick up a large piece of driftwood and hurls it as far as he can into the ocean. “What the HELL am I supposed to do,” he yells out to…he’s not even sure who or what? 

“Hold my hand and come back to me,” Diana answers from behind him. He turns around, slightly startled. He can tell she’s been running to catch up with him. Her cheeks are slightly flushed, her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail and her t-shirt is inside-out. He’s never seen her look more beautiful. She extends her hand and takes a tentative step forward, and he can tell she’s been crying. He takes two giant steps to meet her, grabs her hand and pulls her close.


End file.
